Horizon West resident Lee Steinhauer running for District 44 seat

Horizon West resident Lee Steinhauer holds several titles — small business owner, attorney and government affairs professional — but in 2020 the 37-year-old hopes to pick up another: state representative.

Steinhauer recently announced his campaign for District 44 in the Florida House of Representatives and will go up against candidates Bruno Portigliatti and Frank Blanco for a shot at the Republican nomination. The seat is currently held by Democrat Geraldine Thompson.

The fact that Steinhauer is raising a family in the area played a major role in his decision to run, he said.

“I think this is a great district; I think this is a special district, frankly, with everything we have,” Steinhauer said. “A lot of the issues that we face in this district — whether it be school overcrowding, environmental concerns, making sure we’re smart with our growth — a lot of these core issues that are on people’s minds are issues that I deal with almost on a day-to-day basis.”

Steinhauer earned his criminal justice degree from the University of Delaware and his law degree from Seton Hall University. He works in government affairs through his company, The Steinhauer Group, LLC.

Steinhauer said his experience working alongside local governments has prepared him for the role of state representative. He currently serves on the Orange County Housing for All Task Force, and was appointed by County Commissioner Betsy VanderLey to the Orange County Charter Review Commission. 

Steinhauer also served as a board member on the Seminole County Schools Business Advisory Board.

One of the main issues Steinhauer said he hopes to address is school overcrowding. With a 3-year-old son, Steinhauer said he’s looked ahead and is already fully aware of the situation schools are facing in the area.

He’s proposing a charter amendment as an Orange County Charter Review commissioner to help schools get built in a more timely manner.

“The idea of it is to set a standard for how long a school can be over capacity and at what level of over capacity before we decide we’re going to relieve that school,” Steinhauer said. “It’s an achievable standard that the county school board and local government can coordinate to achieve so that people have a level of certainty of when a school will be relieved. … When do we build schools and how do we build schools and how do we tie overcrowding of a school to the building of a new school? How can we make that better?”

Another topic that Steinhauer said he’ll seek to address is housing affordability, which can be helped by offering more flexibility for affordable housing developments, either by expediting the approval process or allowing more kinds of products.

“There’s definitely no silver bullet, but there’s a lot that we can do to make it better,” he said. “If you look at research that’s done, something like 30% — give or take — of the cost of a development is directly related to government costs, whether it be from the length of the approval process and the cost associated with the approval process or fees. When it relates to affordable housing in particular — a product that’s more affordable and a product that we want — I think that we can do a lot with that 30% of cost to try and lessen the burden, to allow some of the more affordable products to move forward.”

Steinhauer said getting results is ultimately what will set him apart from other candidates.

“I do think I’m uniquely qualified to address, really, the issues that I think people are most concerned about in this district,” he said. “That’s, frankly, why I’m running.”